JFK assassination – timeline

Fifty years ago, President John F Kennedy was shot dead and the events of 22 November 1963 were etched into America's consciousness. From the bright Texas morning to the manhunt for the assassin and into the dark Washington DC night, follow the stories that wove together that day

President John F Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy arriving at Love Field in Dallas, Texas. Photograph: Cecil Stoughton/AFP/Getty Images

7.23am: Oswald goes to work

Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee at the Texas book depository building in Dallas, goes to work with Buell Wesley Frazier, a young worker there. Frazier asks about the long, paper-wrapped package in Oswald’s arms, to which Oswald says: “Oh, just some curtains.”

11.30am: Arrival in Dallas

Air Force One lands at Love Field in Dallas and the disembarking President Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy are met by the press and a crowd of Texans.

12.29pm: Dealey plaza

As the limo enters Dealey Plaza, Nellie Connally turned to the president and remarked, “Mr President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you.”

12.30pm: Assassination

A bullet strikes the president in the back while he waves, followed by a second shot to the back of his head. Another shot severely wounds the governor. A man in the crowd, Abraham Zapruder, happens to film the sequence on his home-movie camera.

12.31pm: Reaction, and Oswald departs

Hearing what he initially thought to be a firecracker, secret service agent Clinton Hill sees the president recoil from the first shot. He runs from the follow-up car, but when he reaches the limousine the second shot hits the president, and the agent leaps aboard too late.

Patrolman Marrion Baker confronts Oswald in the depository cafeteria, but the building superintendent vouches for him. Oswald walks seven blocks, boards a city bus, and eventually gets into a cab at the bus depot.

The limousine carrying mortally wounded president races toward the hospital seconds after he was shot. Photograph: Justin Newman/AP

1.15pm: Officer Tippit killed

Police officer JD Tippit pulls up to Oswald in his car, after having heard of a suspect matching his description. After briefly speaking through an open window, Tippit stepped out of his car and was shot three times in the chest and once in the temple. Twelve people witnessed a man fleeing the scene, and six later identified Oswald in police lineups.

Marie Tippit, widow of police officer JD Tippit, is led weeping from Beckley Hills baptist church in Dallas after funeral services for her husband. The services began about the time those for Kennedy were ending in Washington. Photograph: AP

1pm: Parkland hospital

Doctors are unable to save the president, who arrived ‘moribund’. One says: ‘We never had any hope of saving his life.’ A Catholic priest administered last rites and the first lady reportedly held her husband’s hand and placed one of her rings onto his finger.

1pm: Oswald's flight

Oswald walks back to his rooming house, changes his jacket there for one more lightly colored, and heads back into the street.

1.22pm: On the sixth floor

Police find a rifle behind a stack of books in the room from which the assassin fired.

The sixth floor window of the Book Depository. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

1.30pm: Texas Theatre

Hearing sirens, Oswald ducks into the Texas Theatre without paying, and takes a seat for the movie War is Hell. Police receive a tip from the area about a suspicious man matching their description for Tippit’s murderer.

1.33pm: Kennedy announced dead

The assistant White House press secretary announces the president’s death, which the press reports in real time.

1.45pm: Oswald arrested

Fifteen police officers surround the movie theater, and four officers are needed to subdue Oswald inside. At 1.51pm police report him in custody.

A Dallas Police Officer points to the seat at the Texas Theatre where Lee Harvey Oswald was sitting when police entered to arrest him Photograph: uncredited/AP

2pm: Evidence

Dallas police’s parafin tests confirm that Oswald recently fired a gun. Oswald’s wife later confirms that the rifle found in the depository belongs to her husband.

2.20pm: Air Force One

The hearse carrying the president arrives at Air Force One, with the first lady sitting next to the bronze coffin.

2.30pm: Questioning

Interrogated for almost 12 hours, Oswald denies throughout that he had anything to do with either murder. Confronted with photos of himself holding a rifle and pistol, Oswald "sneered, saying that they were fake photographs … [taken] by the police, that they had superimposed upon the photographs a rifle and revolver." He eventually stops answering all questions.

2.38pm: Lyndon B Johnson sworn in

Vice-president Johnson is sworn in as president on JFK’s Bible while standing in a cramped compartment of Air Force One, next to his wife and Mrs Kennedy.

2.47: Onboard

Air Force One leaves Dallas, and as the plane approaches Washington DC, Mrs Kennedy makes funeral plans and Johnson speaks with advisers. Mrs Kennedy replies to Lady Bird Johnson’s suggestion to change out of her blood-stained dress by saying “Oh no, that’s all right. I want them to see what they have done to Jack.”

7pm ET: First words

Air Force One lands at Andrews air force base in Maryland and Johnson meets the press assembled outside for his first statements as president: “I will do my best. That's all I can do. I ask for your help and God's.”

7.05pm: The family

Robert Kennedy meets the plane and he and Mrs Kennedy go to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where the body has an autopsy and is prepared for the funeral.

7.10pm CT: 'Murder with malice'

11.28pm: Oswald charged

Oswald is formally charged with Kennedy's assassination

November 23: 3.56am ET:

The president’s casket is placed in the East Room of the White House, where it stays under honor guard for 24 hours. Over 250,000 people, including dignitaries from over 90 countries, attend the funeral a few days later.